


Taking A Knee

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Series: Hubris [2]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, F/M, Jake is an Idiot, Mild allusions to racism and mental illness, Once again there are throwbacks to the books that amuse only me, Other Animorphs mentioned, Roller Derby AU, So nothing is new, Surprising other mentions and cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:06:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19240723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: Jake and Cassie go on an impromptu date. Jake isn't as honest with Cassie as he should be, and it he gets put in an embarrassing situation as retribution.-----No Yeerk roller derby AU part 2, but can be read as a standalone. Written to fill the "Hiding an Injury" square on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card.





	Taking A Knee

**Author's Note:**

> Back when Martin first sent in this request for my Bad Things Happen bingo square, friendshiptothemax on Tumblr was just about to have the Blacklist episode she wrote for aired. So I thought that it would be a terrific idea to combine Martin’s request with a little surprise gift to say, “Wow, Sam, you go, that’s awesome!” Because I, much like a cat bringing you a dead bird to place in your shoe, have a little bit of a weird concept of what counts as a gift. Now that approximately half a century has passed since then, I finally offer you this dead bird equivalent: another instalment in the [Animorphs Roller Derby AU that Sam created](https://word-play-sam.livejournal.com/18325.html) and that I got the privilege of playing around in a few years ago. 
> 
> You don’t need to have read either her original fic or my remix to get this (but I highly recommended the original fic, because woah). All the context you need is: no Yeerks, they’ve been allowed to grow into adults and Cassie and Rachel are on a roller derby team that Jake coaches. This particular snippet is inspired by Andrew Wilson’s character’s leg brace in the film _Whip It_ and turned out far longer and more full of romance than I wanted it to. Also, the title is as dorky as the last one's title: In roller derby, when one player on the team is being treated for an injury, it's common for the rest of the team to go down on one knee until the injured player is allowed to return to the bout. 
> 
> CW: Very mild allusions to racism and mental illness, descriptions of moderate physical injury.

It was halfway through the four-hour-long movie, and Jake was still not entirely sure what was going on in the plot. He’d only recently met and started hanging out with Tobias’ roommate, Ax, but even that short acquaintanceship was enough to learn that Ax was passionate about the things he watched, which were either B-Grade soap operas or foreign indie films, with no middle ground. They had all gathered to watch the latter that afternoon – Rachel and Tobias, Marco and his current fling, Jake and Cassie, and Ax and Estrid – because Cassie and Rachel had wanted to stand behind their friend and derby teammate as she went on yet another not-date-but-has-major-potential with Ax, who Jake had heard her call “amazing, but as socially awkward as a Cinnabon ad” at their last practise. Their solidarity with Estrid had led to them pulling their boyfriends in to make it a triple date, and Marco had overheard and invited himself and  _his_ date along. 

 

And, honestly, it wouldn’t have been that bad at all – Jake frequently watched historical documentary series; one four-hour movie was nothing – if he’d actually been allowed to pay attention to the subtitles that flickered, sometimes as fast as a blink, across the screen. Instead, he’d been frequently interrupted by comments, questions, requests to fetch or pass things, or just the sounds of Rachel and Tobias reminding everybody that they did not mind PDA, and Marco trying to flirt with his date while she tried to pay some attention to the movie as well. The worst insult was that Estrid and Ax had disappeared about fifteen minutes ago so that Ax could ‘quickly show Estrid something’. He’d worked with teenagers long enough to read the shifty body language and know that this had probably become a real date, and that they would probably not be returning to the four-hour movie Ax had raved about so much any time soon. 

 

Rachel giggled in a way that had Jake cringing. They were all adults, sure, but he was  _never_ going to be old enough to hear his cousin make that sort of noise without caring that he was around to hear it. Cassie shifted from where she was curled against his side, leaning up so she could whisper in his ear, “Want to go take a walk around the block?” 

 

“ _Please_.”

 

Nobody really noticed them leaving, even when they announced their departure. Unfortunately, Rachel’s apartment was in a neighbourhood that _did_ notice their walking around together hand-in-hand. They’d learned, in their relatively short seven months of dating, which places usually let them be together without a care, and which places charged them for their happiness in looks levered their way by disdainful passerbys.

 

“Should we head back?” Cassie asked, her voice carefully calm, after a particularly hurtful look-whisper-huddle from a group of people bled their easy conversation dry.

 

She’d only pulled her hand from his once, the first time they’d received some looks and a comment about the small public display of affection, but after he’d quietly asked her about it later, awkward as hell and aware he didn’t understand all the nuances it meant to her and struggling to express how he just wanted her to be happy, how he disliked most forms of PDA anyway, how he’d do anything to keep her comfortable, they’d had an honest talk and Cassie had steeled herself against the world and had never let go of him ever again, no matter what came their way.

 

“Cassie, I’d rather be tied up in a cabin in the middle of the woods than be in a room watching _three_ other couples necking each other. Especially when my _cousin_ is involved in one of them.” He got Cassie to laugh, dimples and bright eyes and everything, and he wished that they were alone so he wouldn’t feel awkward and shy about leaning down to kiss her. And that sparked another thought. “I mean, unless _you_ want to go back. Because we can. And we can just... turn the movie up. Or join them in the making out marathon.”

 

Her amusement turned to soft affection, and it made something impossibly warm and sappy bloom in his chest. “You’d make out with me where other people could see us?”

 

“I happen to really like kissing you. More than just about anything. That like will distract me from the fact that there are other people around.” Her fond disbelief remained, even as her smile widened. “I kissed you in front of an entire roller derby stadium,” he reminded her, hating that he was already blushing.

 

“Because I flung myself at you and we were both high on victory endorphins,” Cassie reminded him with a little laugh. “And then after that you – No, Jake. Hey.” She tugged them to a stop, turning to look at him fully, squeezing his hand tighter and placing her free hand on his chest so subtly those who weren’t looking hard would miss the gesture. “You told me right from the beginning you don’t do PDA. And that’s _fine_. I love you anyway, you dork.”

 

A large part of his brain was informing him it would be a great idea to contradict her statement by simply kissing her right there and then, in the street, embarrassment and looks and potential students seeing him be damned. But before he could make up his mind to throw caution to the wind, Cassie’s eyes slid away from him and to something just over his shoulder. Her mouth popped open in a little _o_ , eyes suddenly delighted and surprised. Jake turned to look, and found a sign for the roller disco they’d set up in the little neighbourhood park.

 

“A roller disco!” Cassie said, a little breathless. “I didn’t know people still did that!”

 

“Hmm. This park here hosts a lot of quirky events. All to raise money for the neighbourhood charity initiatives.” 

 

“Quirky? Quirky how?” 

 

“Three months ago it was an amphibian petting zoo, with a main display on the glories of giant slugs.” 

 

Cassie’s eyebrows shot up. “I  _heard_ about that – other vets talking. This is one of the events set up by the Web Access America guy?” 

 

“Fenestre, yeah. Have you heard the rumours about him?” 

 

Cassie snorted. “I mean, who hasn’t. They start ridiculous and weird and then just keep going down south. Most of them that I hear perpetuated in my circles are the ones about his pet rhino.” 

 

“My kids keep telling me about the cannibalism theories,” Jake admitted, and Cassie laughed again. “Whatever the truth is, he’s been trying to rebuild his reputation by pumping money into these community-charity initiatives for a while, now. I guess he decided going back in time to the seventies was the way to go, this time.” He did a little bit of a double-take at the coy-excited-pleading look he found Cassie giving him. “What?” Cassie playfully batted her eyelashes, and realisation struck. “You want to -? You rollerblade three times a week!” he laughed.

 

“For a _contact sport_. This is just... being _quirky_ and seventies chic with my boyfriend.” She gave his hand a little shake. 

 

“What if as soon as you put the skates on the desire to knock people flying just _overcomes_ you, She Wolf?” 

 

Cassie laughed long and loud, thankfully thinking he was  _only_ teasing; not picking up on the fact that he was trying desperately to think of an excuse that would keep him from having to skate with her without having to explain why he should not. 

 

“Then it’s a good thing that my coach is around to help save the innocents, isn’t it, Big Jake?” 

 

“Like I’d be able to keep up with you if you start skate-bombing innocent kids and old people,” Jake snorted, fond and proud in equal measure. 

 

Cassie stood up on her toes and kissed the underside of his jaw, simply grinning and expectant and Jake knew he should tell her but... “I’ve seen you skate at practices and at some bouts,” Cassie reminded him, tugging him toward where the sign advertising the roller disco was pointing. “And so I say that claim is bull.” 

 

“You been checking me out in my skates, Cassie?” 

 

She gave him a look over her shoulder as she tugged him along that made a thrill zip down his spine, and the voice of logic telling him to just come clean and explain to her why he only skated at  _some_ bouts and not all of them like most coaches and why he shouldn’t skate with her  _right then_ went from small to almost muted entirely. And as they walked along, he tried to reason out his choice as something other than fragile ego not wanting to be bruised in her presence. It was just casual skating around to music, after all. Nothing strenuous. They probably wouldn’t be there for very long, either. And it would make her happy; her face was already shining in joy. How could he take that from her? 

 

Logic was still present enough for him to quietly ask one of the bored looking kids behind the counter if they had any knee braces on site while Cassie excused herself to the restroom. All the kid could find was knee pads, and too-small, generic oldschool plastic ones at that. Jake considered taking one, anyway, but it would kind of be like placing a bandaid over a major artery that was in danger of getting sliced open. Mertil brand braces were known for helping when no other brand could, but even his trusty frequently-tweaked contraption, sitting innocently in his closet at home, couldn’t always allow him to confidentially put on the skates for practices or bouts. The knee pad would do nothing but make an awkwardly suspicious bulge beneath the knee of his jeans – Jake thanked the kid behind the counter but did not take the padding with him. 

 

He had one more moment to come clean with Cassie when she returned from the bathroom, but she was grinning and excited and already trashtalking him affectionately like the ladies did before a bout and so he signed his own death warrant with his own stupidity and simply teased her back, sitting beside her on the bench as they both laced up their skates. 

 

“If we see any of my students here it will be up to you to rescue me,” he said, face and voice deceivingly serious. “There’s _nothing_ worse than running into students outside of school. Especially not when they already think I was _alive_ for some of the history I’m teaching them without them catching me disco skating.” 

 

The disco lights made her crinkled eyes and wide smile even more beautiful, and Jake let her lead them both onto the disco floor to some music that had a good beat that he didn’t recognise. And, for a long while, it seemed as though luck was actually on his side for once; that his grim logic had been unnecessarily pessimistic. Because on the disco floor there were no looks sent his and Cassie’s way, and she came alive in a way that made his heart dance in his chest when she was skating, and they even sang along to the few songs that they knew, mangling the lyrics and whizzing past kids and adults alike, neither of them struggling, both of them simply delighted under the lights and the music. His knee did start aching slightly the longer they continued to skate, but it was more a warning than a punishment, and it was easily ignored. 

 

“Uh-oh.” Cassie came in close, wincing a little in sympathy after catching the look on his face. “Did you spot a student after all? Who am I elbowing viciously so you can make your escape?” 

 

“It’s worse than seeing a student,” Jake mumbled back, pulling an exaggerated face. “Crayak’s nephew is here.” 

 

“The Howlers’ coach?” Cassie wrinkled her nose in cheerful distaste as well. 

 

“Yep. His nephew is as bad as him – ask Rachel about the crap he used to pull before bouts before the organisers actually gave Crayak an ultimatum about it.” 

 

“Yikes.” Cassie spun around gracefully to look. “Which one is he?” 

 

“The punk coming around the turn. In the red DRODE dinosaur shirt.” 

 

“Hmmm. We’ll have to keep an eye on – Oh! Nine Inch Nails! I love this song!” 

 

“Wait, _what_?” Jake laughed, delighted in his surprise and forgetting all about the mischievous boy that he’d spotted. 

 

And the boy stayed forgotten about, until Jake happened to glance to his left at one point to see said boy shooting like a rocket toward Cassie, laughing at something he’d just done over his shoulder, not noticing he was about to ram directly into Cassie’s turned back. He’d seen Cassie take a hundred hits, and had even applied ice and, more recently, kisses, to the bruises and scrapes. But she’d always taken hits when carefully padded up, and instinct and responsibility made him step in and pull her roughly out of the way. Jake steadied her as the sudden momentum took her off guard, and that rolled him forward a little bit, and he was glancing at her surprised face one second and was being bowled over by a small missile the next. 

 

The first impact with the wooden floor was hard and breath-stealing, but not too much of a problem, even with Crayak’s nephew landing almost solidly on top of him. But then the skaters behind them had to scramble not to become part of the sudden pileup on the floor, and one of them didn’t stop in time, and when the grown man landed he did so right on top of Jake’s legs. Pain  _exploded_ from his right knee, making Jake’s vision wash with white for a moment. When he came back to himself, Cassie was just dropping beside him, and his leg was  _howling_ in a way that he knew too intimately, and the grim voice of pragmatism in his head was informing him that he had just gone and screwed the pooch. 

 

Crayak’s cousin said some words Rachel would have been proud of and gave Jake an elbow to the gut as he got to his feet, and Jake saw Cassie wince in sympathy. When she asked him if he was okay, he was tempted to brush it off and pretend everything was mostly fine, but a test move of his right leg told him that he’d had his time of living in denial and that time had officially ended. 

 

“Screwed up my knee,” he told her, quietly, sheepish and ashamed and annoyed at himself for lying in the first place. Now, when the truth inevitably came out, Cassie would be even more upset, and probably guilty at having ‘made him’ skate when he shouldn’t have. 

 

With a sigh, Jake sat up and began to undo his skates, Cassie squatting by his side in concern. He tried not to flinch when  manoeuvring the right skate off but didn’t quite manage it, and he saw Cassie pull a face and then sit down to start taking off her own skates, quicker and defter than he’d been doing. When she was done she jumped up and offered him a free hand, and he took it only after a moment’s hesitation at how much bigger and heavier he was than her. Once upright, he picked up both of their pairs of skates and started toward the nearest edge of the rink, dismayed when he discovered how little weight he could put on his knee. Cassie wordlessly pulled one of his arms around her shoulders, and they hobbled to the bench underneath the shoe lockers together. 

 

“This is why roller derbies are a women’s sport; one hit and a man just goes right down,” Cassie teased him, trying to be lighthearted but failing. She was radiating gentle worry, and he caught her hands hovering around his knee like she was barely resisting the urge to inspect it like he was one of her animal patients. 

 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he assured her, and she echoed his statement without conviction wholly reaching her eyes. “Would you mind returning the skates? I’ll call Rachel to come get us.” 

 

“You sure you don’t want me to call in the favour? She’ll be less mad at me,” 

 

For more reasons than Cassie knew, Jake thought grimly. “It’s my bad; I’ll face the grizzly bear.” 

 

“I’ll be right back,” Cassie assured him, and snatched up their skates. 

 

Jake sighed, fished for his phone, found Rachel’s number and dialled. It went to voicemail the first time, so he dialled again, and when she finally picked up he found her grumpy on the other end of the phone. Which made it particularly difficult to admit that they needed a ride back. 

 

“Is Cassie okay?” Rachel asked at once.  


“She’s fine,” he reassured her, hurriedly. “I just... We walked past a roller disco and she really wanted to go and everything was fine until Crayak’s damn nephew barrelled into me and... Well... Screwed up my knee.” 

 

“Aw, shit, Jake,” Rachel groaned, some of her bad mood melting into sympathy. She moved the phone slightly away from her mouth and relayed the explanation to somebody – probably Tobias – and Jake heard sounds of her moving around. “Wait... Crayak’s nephew? Seriously? That little _shit_. I hate him.” 

 

“I know,” Jake said, amusement curling his lips into a smile despite everything. 

 

“He’s always hanging ar- _Wait._ Did you say roller disco?” 

 

“You really put the love of skating into Cassie,” Jake said, dryly. 

 

“As in, both of you. As in, you went skating.” Jake winced and leaned against the lockers with a resigned sigh. “So... you had your knee brace on today?” 

 

“No,” Jake replied, sounding a little mulish. 

 

“You had it in your pocket?” 

 

“No.” 

 

“In your car?” 

 

“I screwed up, Rach. I did.” 

 

“Seriously,” Rachel hissed, over the muffled sound of a door slamming. “You’re – ”

 

“A moron, I know.” He paused for a moment. “Could we... uh... break the news of my idiocy to Cassie gently, please? I don’t want her feeling worse about this than she already will.” 

 

Rachel swore at him. “You didn’t  _tell_ her?” 

 

“She was really excited about roller disco!” he protested, and in that moment realised in horror that he sounded _exactly_ like his students did when they were trying to give dumb excuses. The realisation stopped his self-defence in its tracks. 

 

“Wow, Berenson. Just... _wow_.”

 

“I _know_.” 

 

“I’m telling the whole team,” Rachel said, starting up her car. “So that they can shame you properly.” 

 

Jake exhaled in frustrated acceptance. “Fine. Just... not Tom.” 

 

“Of course not,” Rachel snapped, but her tone was suddenly the gentle kind of concerned, rather than the angry kind she’d been levering at him for most of the phonecall. “I’ll see you in a bit. Try not to die on the way out.” 

 

Jake kept his shoes off, not wanting to struggle with the right one later if his foot swelled, and let Cassie know Rachel was on her way when Cassie returned for her shoes. 

 

“Do you wanna stay here until Rachel comes? She can find a place to park and then we’ll make our way out so you can stay sitting for a while longer.” 

 

“Nah, it’s okay. Better start old man hobbling to the door now.” 

 

He took her hand before he pushed himself to one foot and grabbed his shoes. But after giving his hand a squeeze, Cassie let go and instead moved herself under his arm again like a human crutch. 

 

“You okay?” she asked, quietly, after they’d made their way a couple of steps. “You look _really_ pale.” 

 

“Yeah,” Jake panted, despite feeling as bleak and shaky as she said he looked. “I’m... uh... this isn’t really... new....” 

 

She shot him a puzzled look, but didn’t press, and Jake’s explanation fizzled to embarrassing nothingness. He didn’t know how to do this; never knew how to talk about things that had happened to him when they weren’t casual or funny. Especially not when they had to do with Tom and his brother’s... condition. But if he didn’t tell Cassie now, in private, the first time she’d hear the truth would be from Rachel’s angry-exasperated-worried mouth, and trying to do damage control around other people would be worse. 

 

So when they reached outside and leaned Jake up against a pole to wait for Rachel, he took a few  breaths and held her close and blurted, “I told you I was on my middle school basketball team, right?” 

 

Cassie gave him a long, confused look. “Yesss?” she said, dubiously. “The Falcons, right?” 

 

“Uh-huh. And I told you I was... uh... waaay back on the bench?” Cassie nodded again, lip quirking a little. “So a really terrible case of food poisoning hit the school – bad oatmeal, or something – and most of our team was out for the count. But there was an important game coming up. So all of us seasonal benchwarmers were, unfortunately, the school’s last hope. Coach was... terrified. But he drilled us as hard as he could and I was determined to go home and practise really hard so that I’d show I’d gotten better. Maybe even good enough to actually, you know, be on the team.” Jake hesitated, his chest growing heavy and sad. “And, uh, Tom... Tom saw me practising every spare chance I got... and decided to come out to help...” 

 

Cassie went very still. “Jake...” she said, and then turned around slowly so she was facing him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. He could tell from her face that she’d picked up on the mood of his story. “This was... this was...?”

 

“Before we knew... Before Tom... Before.” He hesitated again. “But this was, uh, basically when we realised for sure something was... up.” 

 

“What happened?” she whispered, her thumbs stroking pattens into the muscles on his back. 

 

“Short story is that we were playing ball and he got... confused.” Jake swallowed. “And... I wasn’t expecting... Anyway, it, uh, turned rough. My dad had to... intervene. But in it all he messed up my knee pretty badly. Dad’s a doctor, you know? So he pretty much took care of it but then... there was a lot going on, so I didn’t really... speak up about things I should have and kinda... screwed things up worse.” 

 

He peeked at Cassie’s expression, and found it a mixture of sympathy and dawning suspicion. “I’m sorry that that happened to you. To both of you,” she said, eventually, and then hesitated, her eyes narrowing. “But are you telling me that – ” 

 

“One pickup for the world’s biggest idiot!” Rachel’s voice yelled, interrupting the awkward questions Jake knew he deserved to have to answer. “Tall, brown hair, frequently rips other people new ones for being irresponsible and reckless and then turns into an A-grade hypocrite so he can macho macho for a pretty girl!” 

 

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh. Cassie’s arms slid from around him. For a beat, they stood in silence. “We’re gonna talk about this later, okay?” Cassie said, her voice calm but with an undercurrent of steel that was She Wolf’s. 

 

“Yeah.” He opened his eyes. “Yeah. I’m... Sorry, Cassie. I’ll apologise with context, later, but just - ”

 

“I’ll hold you to it.” And, to Jake’s relief, she smiled slightly at him. “Come on. Before Rachel starts yelling again.” 

 

She pulled his arm around her shoulder and started helping him hobble to Rachel’s car, waving Tobias off when he awkwardly half emerged from the passenger seat, obviously debating if he should go over to help her. Jake met Rachel’s eyes, shared a long look with her, and nodded, once. He didn’t imagine the quick look of relief that passed her features just before she started heckling him again. 


End file.
